Wednesday, February 10, 2016

Dawn on Jefferson (aside): Mail Run

*jump*

I've always wondered why they didn't just automate the mail runs. Jump ships don't do anything terribly difficult, nor are the systems all that packed. Sense and avoid has been a technology around for over a century now. Basic bots are more than capable of handling this.

I throttle the ship forward hard. I need to maneuver the USPS Revere to lob the mail capsule at Jefferson. The capsule can wiggle and jiggle some to course correct, but its on me to make sure the capsule has enough delta v to make it.

There. Off it goes.

Then I'm shifting to capture the incoming capsule from Jefferson. It'll be here in an hour. So I get some R&R time: I can work on my terrarium. It's a work in progress. Nipping and snipping the plants, making sure the combination of animals and plants makes a good, closed ecosystem.

Then after the capsule gets here, I'll thrust to match relative velocities with the new star I'll jump to as I pass through the jump point. Otherwise, rather than drifting through the next system as I arrive, I'd be speeding off in some strange direction.

*jump*

Many times, getting to and from a system requires multiple jumps. The jump points are the L-1 Points of systems with gas giants closer than 6 AU to their host star. These need to line up and the maximum jump distance right now is 30 light years. However, if there is a star with a jump point between the destination and the origin, the ship will jump there. this can cause trips to take much, much longer. Especially in stellar clusters.

*jump*

Sometimes, we have to sit and wait for the jump points to align. If they're on the wrong side of the star, no transit is possible. Hanging out a jump point is a bummer. It takes time and the mailrunners often see if there's another star they can zigzag to shorten the time. It costs fuel and can leave a ship stranded if there the 'runner uses too much before getting to a refueling point. Its a noob mistake, but given just how vast the galaxy is, we loose some ships every year.

*jump*

Ah. Escheria.

I let loose a huge capsule for them, but I will not be taking one in. I get all their mail by laser. It'll be a couple hours hanging out at the jump point, but that's fine. I'd rather not have ANY of their ecology on this ship. Or be responsible for any contamination elsewhere. They are still under quarantine and I'm trying not to think about the training vids making us experience what COULD happen.

Ok, all loaded up.

Off again.

*jump*

The US Postal Ship Revere is a good ship, a hard working one. And we're headed home. Next stop is Eurynome: the world of decadal seasons and nights and days that last longer than the seasons themselves. The world of mobile plants and living boats. Imagine a 'forest' of boats that stayed directly beneath the sun so they could photosynthesize. Whole continents covered with plants that move, slowly, until they hit the shore line and slowly birth seeds that work their way back to the shore where sunrise will be...just to die.

Its amazing. its also only what I've seen from afar.

*jump*

There are several empty systems between Eurynome and the next American world.

The Indians and Chinese and Europeans had claimed many between. The US invested in many worlds that were shared, but felt in the end, it needed its own solely American worlds, too, and given the rise of the Brazilians, Nigerians and Indonesians, it was going to get tight. There are only so many habitable worlds out there.

*jump*

This.

*jump*

part.

*jump*

of.

*jump*

the.

*jump*

job.

*jump*

sucks.

*jump*

Just leaping from system to system without anything to see. No life, no excitement. No gossip from a world. No gossip to give.

*jump*

Finally, Nakshatra and Suryalocka. The shared moon and the Indian superearth. Sometimes called HD 1080g and its moon. Fire off the payload, catch up on the gossip and off I go.

I really ought to get some leave to stay at the American colony on Nakshatra, Chandrasekhar. The low gravity and tides from Suryalocka make some killer waves for surfing.

*jump*jump*jump*

Caerus. The largely American world and the habitable exoplanet people walked on. Gliese 667Cf. The world of massive rains, the weirdest plants, and the squigglies. I caught one in the cargo bay once. Damned thing was like a cuttle fish that wanted to be a vertebrate, or even sorta, a turtle. odd, and cool. Sadly, I couldn't keep it. Earth life can be transported between the stars, but none of the others.

*jump*

Earth. Home to 10 billion people. My home.

And now, they can download me from the ship and give me a body for my next six months of time off. I'll hate getting back into the ship again: the thing is going to have someone else's mental impressions all over it and they don't make an equivalent of Febreeze for the uploaded brain. oy.

What? Thought they'd send a flesh and blood human on a mail run? geez. Can you imagine the cost! The ships have enough power for an upload, but cannot carry enough food and water. Yes, these ships produce more energy than the whole of earth did before the 2020s.

Well, I'll be flesh and blood soon enough. And not soon enough. The tickle of protons on the ship skin still makes me itch.